August 7th, 2021

Serenity loved to bake. Everybody that knew her was aware of that. And, once they tasted one of her treats, they would understand that she was no slouch. In fact, her talent for baking seemed almost magical. In a way, to regular mortals, it would have been. But when you're a demigod daughter of Demeter you pick up a few natural talents.

Today she wanted to share that with the rest of camp. There was a cupcake recipe that she had created and made with her dad every summer. This would be her first summer without him but that didn't mean it had to be the first summer without the cupcakes. Why not make them with her new family instead?

She had prepared everything. Measured everything ingredient. Prepped every bowl. Campers would work in pairs to combine all their ingredients in the proper order. This was more a lesson on recipe reading than actual baking. But Serenity wouldn't have been able to live with herself if there had been a chance these cupcakes came out less than spectacular for any of the bakers.

Once everybody had settled into a seat at a baking station, Serenity clapped her hands together and held them in front of her chest. She hoped everybody enjoyed these as much as she did.

"Hi everybody, thanks for coming to my lesson today. I think baking is so much fun and I hope y'all will think so too by the time we finish today."

She gestured down at the pile of ingredients in front of her. "I've prepped all your ingredients for you so all you have to do is following the recipe card at your station. I know measuring out ingredients can be stressful sometimes so we're not going to worry about that today."

She nodded and looked about for questions but didn't see any right away. "Alright, I'm here if you run into any issues or have any questions. Other than that you can start whenever you are ready."

Summer Vanilla Cupcakes

1) Beat the eggs using your handheld mixer with the sugar for 7 minutes. The mixture should become glossy and white when ready.

2) In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

3) Gradually add the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Mix on a speed of 1.

4) Melt butter in a bowl of hot milk.

5) Mix some better into the hot milk.

6) Slowly pour milk mixture into the whipped eggs mixture. Beat on lowest speed. Mixture should be smooth.

7) Fill cupcake liners using ice cream scoop. One scoop per liner.

8) Bake for 22 minutes.

9) Top with vanilla buttercream frosting. Add fresh raspberry on top.